50 Cent Says The Movie Industry Will Get New Laws Passed That Will Help The Music Industry

from the say-what-now? dept

Hmm. Last fall, we wrote about 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson's) excellent appearance on CNBC, where he said he didn't worry about file sharing because he saw it as a part of the marketing:

"the people who didn't purchase the material, they end up at the concert."

That seemed rather forward looking of him. Now, however, he seems a bit more ambivalent. Copycense points us to an interview with 50, where he at first notes that the music industry is doing fine... but then busts out the claim that they need to pass new laws to help the industry:

"I don't think the music business is dying," 50 says in the interview. "I think we're just experiencing technology and we just have to pass new laws, eventually, to change how music is being distributed. There's no lack of interest in great material, I don't see people 'not' going to the night club or enjoying themselves when the song comes on. It's just about re-developing what the music business is. It's easier to download a song that's three minutes long, probably about three or four seconds for you to download it, it's easier to steal...The technology is so new and what we're actually doing on the web that we have to develop that."

But... uh... wasn't he just saying that the file sharing acted as marketing for his other lines of business? He seems to go back and forth between recognizing this and saying that new laws are needed, even though it's not clear why. Then he claims that those new laws are coming... just as soon as Hollywood learns that movies are being shared online (apparently 50 hasn't paid attention to what's popular on the file sharing sites these days):

"And those things won't actually happen, the effective laws won't happen until it starts to damage film. When you got your blockbuster film doing $120 million in a weekend and then that blockbuster film that they spent $120 million comes out and nobody goes to see but everybody watched it because they could pull it off their computer and see it on HD at home on a theater. They'll change those laws."

Except, uh, those movies all can be downloaded, and are downloaded... and people still go to theater, just like they "still go to the night club" or to concerts, because of the social experience of going out. It's why some of the most successful movies are also the most downloaded. It's why even as it's quite easy to download a film (contrary to what he appears to believe), box office results keep hitting record highs. And, it's not like the MPAA isn't working hard to try to change those laws, but (thankfully) there doesn't seem to be enough appetite for the type of massive copyright changes the MPAA would like to see.